World News Quick Take

Agencies

UNITED STATES

Tip led to academic’s arrest

A former University of Southern California professor accused of sex crimes involving two children was deported from Mexico after a Mexican recognized his picture in a newspaper and informed the US embassy, the FBI said on Wednesday. Walter Lee Williams, 64, was scheduled to appear in a Los Angeles federal courtroom yesterday to face charges of sexual exploitation of children and traveling abroad for the purpose of engaging in sexual acts with children. He had been placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list on Monday and was captured late on Tuesday in Playa del Carmen. The tipster is eligible for a US$100,000 reward.

UNITED STATES

Cat nurses orphaned puppy

A cat caring for four newborn kittens is nursing an orphaned week-old pit bull puppy in Cleveland, Ohio. Sharon Harvey of the Cleveland Animal Protective League on Wednesday said that Lurlene the cat welcomed Noland the puppy to her “unusual little family.” The puppy was dropped off at the animal shelter last week when he was a day old. The puppy will grow faster, so the shelter says it may have to come up with another feeding idea in several weeks until Noland is ready for adoption.

VENEZUELA

Group attack university

A group of masked assailants has attacked the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas, torching two buses and seriously damaging its rectory building. Amalio Belmonte, the school’s secretary-general, says about 20 people invaded the campus and shot firearms into the air on Wednesday afternoon. They set one bus on fire near the entrance to a study center and another outside the ground floor of the offices of the rectory, he said. Belmonte believes the attack was revenge for student protests that since June 7 have been demanding pay raises for professors and more funds for the university.

UNITED STATES

Vaccinations prove effective

A vaccine for human papillomavirus (HVP), a sexually transmitted infection that can cause cervical cancer, is proving so successful that a top disease specialist is pushing to inoculate an entire generation of teenage girls. Cases of certain HPV strains have plunged 56 percent among females 14 years old to 19 years old since the first vaccine, Merck & Co’s Gardasil, was introduced in 2006, according to an article in the Journal of Infectious Diseases on Wednesday. The shot is 82 percent effective against the virus that can cause cervical cancer if at least one of the three doses is given. “These are striking results and they should be a wake-up call that we need to increase vaccinations,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Thomas Frieden told reporters on a conference call. “It is possible to protect a generation from cancer and we have to do it.”

UNITED STATES

Mother ‘forced to beat girl’

A mentally disabled mother whom authorities said was enslaved for two years along with her daughter spent time in jail this year after pleading guilty to beating the girl, but her attorney told a judge that her captors forced her to do it. Court records show that a child-endangering complaint was filed against the woman in October last year, just a day after she was charged with shoplifting and asked to be jailed because three people had been mean to her. Beginning in early 2011, the three suspects forced the mother to cooperate with them by threats and physical abuse, federal prosecutors said.